fast tschüß!
that means almost good-bye. and i am not leaving, but my homies are. rahul leaves tomorrow for india, then we drive to munich, and in 3 more days, noel flies back to dc and héctor and noel go back to cologne to take their flight to the metropolis of mcallen, tx.
we've had a great time so far, though. the football craze is just too good. and mexicans are all over the place. literally. even when we arrived in bielefeld, right after we left hannover, and just to be close to halle (westfalen), where we were going to see the final of the gerry weber tennis tournament... well, there we thought we would not find one single mexican. but ooooh were we mistaken! it was packed. we are like cockroaches. and it's great!
yesterday in gelsenkirchen (another super small city, like 100,000 people), we went to the fanfest right after the portugal-mexico match, and all the locals kept saying that mexico's is by far the most numerous group, even more so than the portuguese or the poles!! who also played there. and they also say that our contingent is the most fun. that's good to know and i guess they like us a lot since every game we've been to, the germans are always rooting for mexico, they wear our jerseys and paint their faces in green, white, and red! and as we walk by stores or on the street, people come out or honk their horns and yell at us mexico! mexico! just too good.
the games have been just ridiculous. the match vs iran was probably the most fun because it was our first stadium experience and also because we won 3-1. and nürnberg was a fantastic place to host a game... it is rather small and mexicans were just everywhere. for the angola game we didn't have tickets. so we watch the game at the fanfest, and it was still super crowded, and a great atmosphere. a couple of people mentioned that 130,000 mexicans without tickets for the match arrived in hannover. i don't know if that's true but it definitely felt like it was! it was just unbelieveable. although the 0-0 vs angola was hard to swallow, even harder than our 1-2 loss to portugal in gelsenkirchen. mexico played a lot better in this last match against the portuguese, but we also made a lot of mistakes. we totally controlled the second half but bravo missed a penalty kick. what a moron. the worst was when he and the goalie came out after the game was over, to thank the crowd and cheer us up. everyone was booing them. after our 3-1 victory against iran, everybody went crazy and everybody stayed for at least another half hour after the match was over. not this time. although one hour later, everybody seemed to have forgotten the loss, and we all celebrated that we made it to the next round. or that we were in germany. or that there was lots and lots of beer and sausages. it didn't matter, everybody went nuts, mexican-packed trams literally jumped up and down all over the city, and random mexicans ran in the streets waving their flags.
our diet has consisted pretty much of kebabs and sausages. it's the cheapest option and it tastes great. in wuppertal, we had big-ass kebabs for 1.50€! and that was enough to fill you up. even in mexico, it's hard to find a place that sells an order of tacos for that much!
for the round of 16, we are playing argentina. despite the 6-0 loss that the serbs experienced against the argentines, there is a bizarre optimism amongst the mexicans. everybody keeps referring to the argentina-mexico semifinal in the confederations cup last year, when mexico almost beat the albicelestes, except they scored at the last minute to tie the game and then beat us in penalty kicks. it is possible, people say. doesn't sound as though they are lying. they want to believe it and they want to persuade themselves and others to believe it, to believe that the great team of la volpe can make it to the quarters.
now i'm off. we had some frankfurter specialty for lunch, grüne soße, some sort of green sauce made out of 7 green herbs and then served with eggs and potatoes, and i'm still a bit hungry. perhaps i'll get some (more!) ice cream!
tschüß!!
we've had a great time so far, though. the football craze is just too good. and mexicans are all over the place. literally. even when we arrived in bielefeld, right after we left hannover, and just to be close to halle (westfalen), where we were going to see the final of the gerry weber tennis tournament... well, there we thought we would not find one single mexican. but ooooh were we mistaken! it was packed. we are like cockroaches. and it's great!
yesterday in gelsenkirchen (another super small city, like 100,000 people), we went to the fanfest right after the portugal-mexico match, and all the locals kept saying that mexico's is by far the most numerous group, even more so than the portuguese or the poles!! who also played there. and they also say that our contingent is the most fun. that's good to know and i guess they like us a lot since every game we've been to, the germans are always rooting for mexico, they wear our jerseys and paint their faces in green, white, and red! and as we walk by stores or on the street, people come out or honk their horns and yell at us mexico! mexico! just too good.
the games have been just ridiculous. the match vs iran was probably the most fun because it was our first stadium experience and also because we won 3-1. and nürnberg was a fantastic place to host a game... it is rather small and mexicans were just everywhere. for the angola game we didn't have tickets. so we watch the game at the fanfest, and it was still super crowded, and a great atmosphere. a couple of people mentioned that 130,000 mexicans without tickets for the match arrived in hannover. i don't know if that's true but it definitely felt like it was! it was just unbelieveable. although the 0-0 vs angola was hard to swallow, even harder than our 1-2 loss to portugal in gelsenkirchen. mexico played a lot better in this last match against the portuguese, but we also made a lot of mistakes. we totally controlled the second half but bravo missed a penalty kick. what a moron. the worst was when he and the goalie came out after the game was over, to thank the crowd and cheer us up. everyone was booing them. after our 3-1 victory against iran, everybody went crazy and everybody stayed for at least another half hour after the match was over. not this time. although one hour later, everybody seemed to have forgotten the loss, and we all celebrated that we made it to the next round. or that we were in germany. or that there was lots and lots of beer and sausages. it didn't matter, everybody went nuts, mexican-packed trams literally jumped up and down all over the city, and random mexicans ran in the streets waving their flags.
our diet has consisted pretty much of kebabs and sausages. it's the cheapest option and it tastes great. in wuppertal, we had big-ass kebabs for 1.50€! and that was enough to fill you up. even in mexico, it's hard to find a place that sells an order of tacos for that much!
for the round of 16, we are playing argentina. despite the 6-0 loss that the serbs experienced against the argentines, there is a bizarre optimism amongst the mexicans. everybody keeps referring to the argentina-mexico semifinal in the confederations cup last year, when mexico almost beat the albicelestes, except they scored at the last minute to tie the game and then beat us in penalty kicks. it is possible, people say. doesn't sound as though they are lying. they want to believe it and they want to persuade themselves and others to believe it, to believe that the great team of la volpe can make it to the quarters.
now i'm off. we had some frankfurter specialty for lunch, grüne soße, some sort of green sauce made out of 7 green herbs and then served with eggs and potatoes, and i'm still a bit hungry. perhaps i'll get some (more!) ice cream!
tschüß!!
posted by adrián at 10:57
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